Nederland leest Oeroeg (2009)

Plot Summary

Reading relay of the novel 'Oeroeg' by Hella Haasse by eighty well-known and lesser-known Dutch people. Each person reads a page aloud, after which the book is passed on to the next reader. Philip Freriks, news anchor and ambassador for Nederland Leest, opens the reading relay. Director Shireen Strooker concludes it. 'Oeroeg' is Hella Haasse's debut novel from 1948. Haasse tells the story of the friendship between an Indonesian boy and the son of a Dutch administrator at a tea plantation in the Dutch East Indies before the Second World War. Gradually, the two boys grow apart. When the narrator, the Dutch boy, returns to the Indies—which has not yet quite become Indonesia—after studying in Delft, their estrangement turns out to have grown into a chasm. The final sentence reads: "Am I forever a stranger in the land of my birth, on the soil from which I do not wish to be uprooted? Time will tell."

Full Cast & Characters

Ahmed Aboutaleb

Self

Hedy d'Ancona

Self

Abdelkader Benali

Self

Noraly Beyer

Self

Naima El Bezaz

Self

Marion Bloem

Self

Peter Blok

Self

Michiel Borstlap

Self

Aaf Brandt Corstius

Self

Remco Campert

Self

Bart Chabot

Self

Adriaan van Dis

Self

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